How many hamburgers does a reservoir hold?

Not too long ago, I visited the San Luis Reservoir, a giant water storage system located on Highway 152, about 30 miles east of Gilroy.

As of early September, the reservoir was at just 13 percent of capacity.

The 60-plus miles of dry shoreline looked as though they didn’t even remember what water was. Vegetation had sprouted, and they had the look of the striped walls of the Grand Canyon, with layers of sedimentation visible.

The reservoir also has a visitor center, where helpful rangers answer questions, point our landmarks and give out fact sheets.

One pamphlet that I’d picked up popped into my mind the other day while I was eating a hamburger and contemplating California’s drought (Yes, I think about these things during my off hours…).

Essentially, the sheet highlights the fact that everything we eat can be boiled down (harhar) and measured by the amount of water needed to produce it.

It’s the carbon footprint idea, using water instead.

According to this handout, it took nearly 700 gallons…

…of water to grow the ingredients and produce the hamburger I was enjoying so much.

The beef patty took more than 600 gallons, the cheese about 56 gallons and the top and bottom buns took 22 gallons together (the Department of Water Resources, which produced the sheet, didn’t include condiments. Hello – those are the best part!)

Anyway, let’s do some math.

The capacity of the San Luis Reservoir is more than 2 million acre feet. One acre foot is the equivalent of about 326,000 gallons. Using that 2 million number, that means the reservoir can hold, say, 652 billion gallons of water. That’s more than 930 million hamburgers.

Thirteen percent capacity works out to about 85 billion gallons of water — or, enough to make 121 million hamburgers. These are rough calculations, of course, and I’m NO engineer.

But it’s interesting to think about how much water gets handed out through take-out windows — and at gourmet restaurants — every day.